The Rock Farm scheme, one of the UK’s largest energy storage schemes, is located near Ludlow (Shropshire) and connected into the local grid owned and operated by Western Power Distribution. The facility, comprising 16×1.25 MW BYD-manufactured storage units, was developed and constructed by Anesco and commissioned by the company in June this year.
Rock Farm will be monitored by Anesco’s specialist O&M service, AnescoMeter, and linked to Limejump’s Virtual Power Plant offering to ensure it generates maximum returns for Eelpower through a number of different revenue streams including firm frequency response and wholesale trading. Rock Farm is Eelpower’s seventh project in its stable of energy storage assets.
In November 2017, Eelpower acquired a 10 MW storage unit at Leverton in Lincolnshire which was also developed and constructed by Anesco. Earlier this year, the company – with the support of Anesco – co-located storage units at two low-head river hydro schemes in Yorkshire, the first time in the UK that battery storage has been deployed alongside hydropower schemes. Over the same period, Eelpower and Anesco have worked together on energy storage projects with a total capacity of 33 MW.
Eelpower has also acquired two storage schemes that will be commissioned later this year – a 10 MW scheme near Winchester and an 8 MW scheme in Cumbria. The company has plans to construct up to 80 MW of electricity storage capacity over the next 6-8 months, with a further 100 MW every 3-6 months afterwards.
Mark Simon, chief executive of Eelpower Ltd: “With the transition to a flexible, decentralised energy system moving at pace, Eelpower is responding to the market opportunity. We intend to deploy significant battery capacity – 1GW by 2022, to provide National Grid and local grid companies with the flexibility that the system needs while building a platform for us to profitably trade electricity. Our working relationship with Anesco has been invaluable, helping us to take advantage of the opportunities in the storage market.”
Anesco currently has 29 operational sites, comprising 76 individual battery units, providing a combined capacity of 87 MW. The total capacity installed by the company is set to exceed 380 MW by 2020. In September 2017, Anesco officially opened the UK’s first subsidy-free solar farm and the company remains the only renewable developer to have retrofitted solar farms with energy storage.
